Author: Max

Being a Better Writer: Working with Soft Magic

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , ,

Welcome back, writers! It’s time for another Monday installment of Being a Better Writer!

Well, and some news. I’ve got the serious news, and I’ve got the chill news. We’ll go with the serious news first: I will be in Alaska starting April 20th and off the grid.

Those of you that are long-time readers of this site know what that means. I’m headed up to Alaska for a fishing trip. Two, in this case. I’ll be back hopefully in six weeks, since the plan this time is to take five weeks.

Now, if you’re wondering “What about Being a Better Writer?” never fear, I’ll be spending a good chunk of this week getting all those posts up and scheduled properly. So there won’t be a drought while I’m gone, just as before. That said, if you’re using a site that relies on cross-posts to deliver Being a Better Writer content, you may not be seeing some of those non-automated cross-posts appearing. So just be aware that the best way to get your BaBW fix is to hit up the site itself.

Okay, that’s the serious news. What’s the chill news? I’ve seen The Super Mario Bros. movie, and it’s a lot of fun.

It’s also not a complicated movie, and I think this is where some of the critical miss is coming from. A lot of critics seem unable or unwilling to experience a movie that’s primary aim is just fun. And that’s Super Mario Bros. Given the games, I think that’s entirely accurate: A Mario movie shouldn’t be trying to be some massive allusion for oil, corporations, or “the meaning of life.” And that’s okay. Some movies are just fun, and that’s what Super Mario Bros. is trying to do.

I personally saw it as succeeding in that regard, and I’ll even give it credit that it did go a little further than it had to. It didn’t have to give all its characters little touches of personality with personal goals to achieve, but it did, and the movie was better for it. It definitely didn’t need to give Princess Peach the care and attention it did—I say this to mean that Illumination could have easily made her a standard Disney Princess fare and no one would have batted an eye—but they went ahead and did that anyway, delivering what was honestly one of the better “strong female protagonists” I’ve seen in a recent animated feature. Certainly better than any recent Disney movie has managed in that regard. She’s a princess who actually cares about her subjects and manages a kingdom! Acting like a ruler, while still showing that sometimes the weight of her crown is heavy, etc.

Basically, I had a lot of fun because I expected to have fun. There were a lot of good laughs, plenty of visual movement and humor to watch, tons of callbacks that—to me, at least—didn’t feel egregious, and while it’s definitely a movie where the characters are driven by simple goals and are largely moving along to keep the plot going to the next big set-piece … that doesn’t mean at all that it isn’t fun.

So yeah, ignore the critics who don’t seem to remember what “fun” is (to them, probably something that comes served on a wooden plank with a small lecture about your eco-sustainability during political elections or similar such nonsense). Just go expecting bright, colorful worlds, classic Mario tunes, and a confrontation with Bowser.

Oh, and Chris Pratt’s voice acting work is fine. Totally fine.

Will there be a longer “review” of it later? Probably. My thoughts are still settling, but overall the experience was a highly positive one. It’s straightforward, uncomplicated, fun. If you like the sound of that, I’d encourage checking it out.

All right, let’s set aside the news and talk about today’s Being a Better Writer post, shall we? A few of you might have looked at that topic and wondered exactly where this was going to go, especially if you’ve been on the Discord recently, but a certain bit of reader response to a book there actually came after this topic going on the list. It was just pure coincidence that said book happened to … Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Today we’re talking about “soft magic.” Or, alternatively, we’re discussing what a “soft magic system” is, since some will be thinking “I know of Hard Magic, but not soft” and others are probably still going “Wait, isn’t it just magic?”

So, hit the jump, and let’s start there first. Let’s talk about what Soft Magic is and what makes it different from Hard Magic. Once we’ve got that baseline established, then we can talk about the use of Soft Magic in your stories. Hit the jump!

Continue reading →

Weekend News – Gym Djinni on Patreon, Doctorow on Audible, and more!

Max Weekly Updates , , , , , , ,

Hey there folks! It’s only Thursday, I know, but I’m kicking off this weekend’s news post a little early because, plainly put, there’s news to be discussed! And we’re just going to dive right into it.

First up, there’s a new short story on Patreon for supporters! This one was a lot of fun to write, and it’s definitely going in the next Unusual Events book. Which I do have a decent pile of shorts for at this point. I should get on that. Though give how poorly the last one did, it’s not exactly a red-hot-right-now push.

Anyway, this story is titled Gym Djinni, and it sees a young museum worker at the gym spy something … quite extraordinary. Things only get stranger from there. It’s 7,000 words (actually short, I know) and was an absolute blast to write. Supporters, I hope you enjoy this one. Everyone else will have to wait until a little later. Or … you can just become a Patreon Supporter. It’s not exactly bank-breaking to do so (at least, I hope).

Either way, enjoy the story. I had fun writing it, and I think you’ll have a good time reading it.

Now, on to other news! I awoke this morning to an interesting post in my feed: A guest post on Brandon Sanderson’s site from Cory Doctorow regarding Audible and the unwelcome state—from an author’s perspective—of audiobooks.

And frankly, I think he’s got some very solid points. He echoes a few concerns and gripes I’ve noted with Amazon (and in my case, other places) in my posts about their advertising practices, but also discusses some less-than-savory ongoing problems with Audible that you may or may not have heard of.

Now, I get that people love audiobooks. But I can also see how it’s being abused, and badly, with royalties that are badly out of proportion for the author and worse, some downright nasty dirty moves from Audible (such as outright encouraging people to return audiobooks within a generous window, even after it has been finished, and then taking 100% of the refund straight from the author royalty, whilst keeping the money Audible had made for itself).

You can check it out here. I do recommend it. Especially if you’re a heavy audibook listener, you might want to be aware what’s going on behind the scenes and why that habit might not be helping the author the way you think.

Myself? I still don’t have audiobooks. Though stuff like this makes that less likely, not more, since it seems like it’d be all but impossible to recoup the costs without some sort of external marketing.

Like I said, give it a look. More news after the jump.

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: How Do I “Do the Research?”

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , ,

Welcome back, writers! Another Monday is here, bringing with it the start of a new month as well as—in my case, anyway—another load of snow.

Which is both unusual and not, where I live. From my time in Utah, I’ve grown to expect the “last gasp” of winter to be a snow flurry in the first weekend of April, and most of the time that’s exactly what happens, forming a striking interrupt in what would otherwise be the “first bike ride of spring” territory.

But that’s a flurry, one that never sticks to the ground. By comparison this year has broken all sorts of snow records across the state, and last night wasn’t a “chance of snow flurries” but a full “winter storm warning.” And while that just meant a few inches as of this morning, at least where I dwell, the fact remains that such is not a flurry, and winter’s grasp is proving exceptionally clingy this year.

None of this has that much to do with today’s topic, by the way. This is just preamble. Unless you’re searching for information and research about what it’s like in Utah today, to which I’d answer at least the northern half of the state is pretty wet.

But you’re probably not here for that. No, if you’re here on Unusual Things on a Monday, odds are you’re here for Being a Better Writer. Which, fortunate reader you, is the true purpose of this post. Monday delivers something to look forward to once again.

So, enough kidding around. There’s already a news post from last Friday if you’re wondering what else is going on around here, so you can go read that if you’re curious about what the latest projects are (or if you’re new, to see what’s going on and what the rest of the site is concerned with). Everyone else who’s read in, let’s talk about today’s topic: how to do the research.

See, a common axiom repeated again and again here on Unusual Things as well as at writing conventions and other workshops involved in the process of teaching writing is “Always do the research.” Sands, it comes up often enough that there’s a tag for it in the tag cloud here (“Research,” for the curious, which will also grace this post).

With as often as it comes up, however, it continues to do so. “Always do the research” has to be an axiom because there are, unfortunately, a wide array of folks who don’t do the research. Or do the research really poorly. And prior discussions of this topic have pointed out direct examples of books that have made it to print from traditional publishers that have had wide arrays of astounding errors, each with their own ramifications.

Side note: My personal favorite has to be a Sci-Fi machinegun that fired at .25c, as in the speed of light, without somehow creating a chain of fusion explosions the moment the bullet began to accelerate down the atmosphere, while the favorite of the news is a “historical fiction” novel from a few years back that managed to infamously confuse a Legend of Zelda videogame walkthrough for “historical fact,” resulting in a truly bizarre bit of “historical fiction” (yes, this made it past the editors of a major publishing house, which says a lot about how good the self-claimed “gatekeeping for quality” seal is at actually providing said quality). My least favorite was a short story fiction winner that based its entire setup on the idea that copper rusts like steel, then presented an “idealized” future of agrarian farmers and hunters that made it very clear the author had no idea how farming worked in the slightest and couldn’t even be bothered to do some basic research.

Okay, side-note over. Point is, “always do the research” is a truism regardless of what you’re writing about. I recall one of my first exposures to this coming from what was one of my first LTUE attendances, where a fairly famous Fantasy author gave a little example of how many fantasy books he’d read that had a tannery in the middle of a generic fantasy village, which was his “red flag” for “this writer did no research whatsoever.” Because tanneries stink, and you did not want them inside the village. At the least they’d be confined to an industrial sector downwind of everyone else who cared about the smell.

Point being, just because we’re writing about fiction doesn’t mean that our stories entirely disregard reality. In fact, actually, it’s quite the opposite. Contrary to what the common layman may think, writing fiction can actually be far more difficult than writing non-fiction. Writing non-fiction often simply means reciting facts, recording or transcribing them for the future. If Scientist Davi runs an experiment and it fails, that is what non-fiction records: Scientist Davi ran an experiment—here are the details from their notes—and it failed.

Fiction, on the other hand, is not merely regurgitating an occurrence. It means taking aspects of reality, from physics to biology to finance—everything related to what you’re writing about, in other words—and then understanding it to the degree that you can write about what would happen if you applied a small twist. It’s not only understanding that something exists, such as a tannery during medieval times, but understanding enough of how that tannery operates and what it did so that you can understand how and where it slots into its surroundings and the economy of the village … So that when you do something like have it operate via wizard, or perhaps be run by a group of paranoid gnomes standing three-high in a trench-coat, you’re able to work out how that would change said tannery.

In other words, non-fiction is often about regurgitating facts, while fiction is about understanding them to the degree that you can write a reasonable way for them to become different if you make that tiny tweak of fiction.

And look at that. We’re a thousand words in and still locked in the preamble. Point being, “always do the research” is a must-have mantra if you want to write good fiction. Fiction that understands the world enough to make that tiny tweak. Now, this doesn’t mean that it’ll stay true or even happen that way—after all, Crichton wrote Jurassic Park back in the late 80s and since then the science hasn’t given us dinosaurs like the book, much in the way Shelley’s Frankenstein didn’t give us corpses reanimated by lightning. But both at the time did do research into what science thought might be possible. Sure, we may find a dozen years later that orbits don’t exactly work like that, or what we thought was a planet was in fact, a misinterpreted signal. Doing the research does not future-proof our books into being non-fiction.

But it does ground them. And there are some things that will stay true, regardless of setting. For example, if you’re writing a book about a small fantasy village with a tech-level comparable to say, 200 AD Roman Empire, then one thing you’re going to want to do research on—even if just for something as benign as a character going to get a glass of water. Because procuring a cup of water in a 200 AD tech-level is not automatically akin to producing one today. To write about how your characters might live, you need to know how people in those places and situations lived. Why they made the building choices they made. The life choices they made. Career.

Not because you’re going to replicate it 100%, but because you need to understand what the affects of your little wrinkle will be. If you’ve introduced magic of some kind to this setting, you’ll need to think about what effects that will have on things. But in order to understand that, you need to understand what is being affected and how it functions. It’s akin to … making a shot it pool. Your goal in pool is to use one billiard ball to strike another and hopefully send it into the correct place, but in order to make that judgement, you need to look at the whole picture before the ball you strike enters it.

Okay, that is more than enough preamble. Let us now graduate into today’s topic. Let us move a bit further with this concept. Assuming an understanding of why the research is important is already known to you, this can create a further question that then becomes paramount, especially in a young writer’s mind: how do I do the research?

You know the drill. Hit the jump, and let’s talk about it.

Continue reading →

Friday News Pile!

Max Weekly Updates , , , , , ,

Hello readers!

It has been a quiet week, at least publicly. Outside of the news about the Dog Save the King submission call (which you can check out at this link if you missed it) and Monday’s Being a Better Writer post, it’s been kind of silent these last few days.

Well, that’s going to take a sudden change, because I’ve got news today. I just finished the first draft of the next Jacob Rocke book! That’s right, it took longer than expected, largely because it went about 40,000 words longer than I meant for it to, but it’s done. Now it gets set aside, along with the notes I made, so that in a few months I can come back and pre-Alpha things. And hopefully make some cuts. And some changes to early parts of the manuscript that work better with the later bits that I already made notes for (though the pre-Alpha read will be the first test of those).

Is it going to be the most amazing book ever? Nah, probably not. But it is fun, and there’s a neat little mystery going on that moves more and more into the “How?” angle of things as the puzzle pieces come in. Jacob Rocke isn’t the most incredible character, but he is good at what he does. And the antagonist in this one … Well, let’s just say I think it’s a pretty great concept, and it’s one of those things that’s going to make a lot of people think “Wait, that’s so simple it’s genius. Why have I never seen that before?”

Anyway, I’ll let you all be the final judges when it drops as a complete product, but for now, that’s one more novel done!

Which means … Yes, it is time. Time for Axtara – Magic and Mayhem.

Continue reading →

“Dog Save the King” – Submission Call From Hemelein!

Max Books! , , , , , , ,

Heads up, writers! Hemelein has posted their call for new short story submissions to the latest LTUE Benefit Anthology, titled Dog Save the King!

The LTUE Benefit Anthologies, if this is the first you’re hearing of them, are a feature of Life, The Universe, and Everything, a Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writing Convention/Symposium that’s nearing its 42nd year. The anthology collections, in addition to being fun short story collections full of all sorts of neat shorts, are actually a charity benefit, the proceeds from their sales used to support the cost of running the convention so that students—from elementary school to college—can get in at a steep discount.

Sop basically, buy one of these books, and you’re helping cover the costs of students attending the conference at a student rate, which for a con that’s all about writing and learning to write, is a major boon to all those students.

Alternatively, you can also submit a story to be in one of these books, and help keep the anthology tradition going! Plus, you get to see your name in print (some for the first time) and can attend the con and sign copies for readers! It’s great fun!

In any case, whether or not you can make it, it’s also a blast to submit to, because the LTUE Benefit Anthologies always have some fun prompts, often reflected in the title. Which is why we’ve had prompts like A Dragon and Her Girl, A Parliament of Wizards, or Troubadours and Space Princesses.

Which, naturally, leads us to this year’s prompt and title: Dog Save the King, a collection of Sci-Fi and Fantasy stories that all revolve around canine heroes saving the day for royalty.

If that sounds like a short story you’d want to write, then be aware that submissions close Friday, May 19th, at midnight. You can check out a larger list of requirements below the jump, then head over to Hemelein’s submission post to gather any other details you may need.

Hit the jump for details on Dog Save the King!

Continue reading →

Being a Better Writer: The Brumak Rodeo Trope

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome back, writers! Monday is here, and that means it’s time for another installment of Being a Better Writer! And this week? We’ve got an interesting one to talk about.

Yeah, I know you can all see it right there, up above. Some of you might even be thinking “Aha, a trope I can read about on TV Tropes later. Thanks!” but I’ll warn you that it isn’t going to be that easy.

Why? Well for starters, there is no “Brumak Rodeo” trope listed on TV Tropes. I’ve checked. That lack is one of the reasons I decided to write this post today. Because the concept that I associate with the term? Also not on TV Tropes.

In other words, the Brumak Rodeo is a trope that is not recognized. Either by the term I’m using, or as a trope acknowledged by that site. And … to be fair, I can kind of see why: It’s not something that’s commonly used across stories. In fact, it seems pretty darn rare. For a couple of reasons, among them being it takes a lot of careful setup to use, and use effectively. Used poorly, it’ll come off wrong with the audience and feel ill-earned, quite possibly tanking your pacing. At worst, it could feel like poorly paced pandering—not something you want interrupting your finale.

Maybe this is why we don’t see a lot of books use this concept. In fact, where I’ve seen it used most isn’t in books or movies—off the top of my head I can’t even think of a good example from a movie—but from video games. But even then, it’s not a common trope. Possibly because of the various difficulties of using it well.

But here’s the thing: Used well, this trope can produce some amazingly satisfying and cathartic moments for your audience. moments which can be some of the most memorable of the entire story. And while I’m almost certain that this trope is older than dirt (there’s bound to be at least one ancient myth that uses it in some fashion, even if I can’t think of one off-hand), again it’s so rarely seen that I wanted to make it a discussion topic today. Because it is one of those story tropes that should be in your toolbox, and I think that more writers should have an understanding of how it works. You won’t use it a lot—to date, for example, I’ve only used it once across my entire library of works—but it does make for a fantastic tool under the right circumstances.

So hit the jump, and let’s talk about the Brumak Rodeo. And for that, you need to know what a Brumak is, and where the term “Brumak Rodeo” comes from.

Continue reading →

Weekly Update

Max Weekly Updates , , , , , ,

Hey readers! It’s time for the news!

I know. It’s been a quiet week. Mostly because my fingers have been busily clicking away on the finale of that Jacob Rocke book. He’s knee-deep into things now, and it’s all but wrapped up. The draft is sitting at around 115,000 words, which is a bit longer than I expected, and there’s some rewriting and adjustments to make before it’ll go into Alpha, but overall I’m content.

Once that’s done (and it’ll be sometime next week; there really isn’t much left), I’ll start on Axtara 2, which I know a lot of you have been waiting anxiously for. It’s going to be a lot of fun, folks. And after that …

Well, might as well drop some other news. Somehow, in the span of a few mysterious hours, One Drink received today over twenty new ratings on Amazon. No reviews, just ratings. No other book received any attention. Doubly strange is that One Drink hasn’t even had any attention recently. I’ve got the sales numbers, and it’s far below the floor set by Axtara and Colony. Yet somehow, in the span of a few hours … boom.

It’s puzzling, so I guess I’ll keep an eye on it?

Anyway, that really is all there is for news this week. It’s been a quiet week, really. Just working on this still-unnamed Jacob Rocke book, and gearing up for Axtara 2.

Oh, and there was the fairy tale I put up for supporters on Patreon. I do have another short planned between the end of Rocke’s latest mystery and starting work on Axtara – Magic and Mayhem. It’ll go up on Patreon next month. No name, but it’s a fun little idea I had that just begged to be written.

And after Axtara 2 … Well, that’ll be for the Patreon Supporters to decide, I think. There are some fun options coming.

Back to work for me! I’ll see you all Monday!

Being a Better Writer: Don’t Get a Sensitivity Reader, Get an Expert

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , ,

I can hear the torches being lit from here with a title like that. Like the Beacons of Gondor, save instead of summoning riders, they’re summoning an unhappy bunch.

And … I kind of get it. Today’s title is a controversial one which just so happens to take a stance that would see you broadly booted from many online spaces without even a question (but with lots of irony).

But as usual, and before with some of the more controversial subjects this series has discusses, I’m asking you, readers, to extend a bit of trust. Yes, I acknowledge that today’s topic will not be to everyone’s taste. As noted above, there are spheres on the web where such a suggestion would instantly see you banned without question, defense, or even time to say “I was just kidding!” Point being, there are people for whom the idea of a “sensitivity reader” is sacrosanct, even more important than an editor or a copy-edit session.

Thing is, this doesn’t usually produce good books, because there are fundamental issues with sensitivity readers and what they do. One that makes them ideologically appealing to certain circles but an unfortunately toxic tool in many instances.

So, let’s dive into it. Let’s discuss the post that’s probably going to be the most controversial thing I write all year. Hit the jump, and let’s talk about why instead of getting a sensitivity reader, you should probably just track down an expert.

Continue reading →

Patreon Supporter Reward and Other News!

Max Weekly Updates , , , ,

Hey folks! Max here with some great news! And well, the weekly news.

For starters, there’s a new Patreon Supporter Reward up! Supporters can find it here. This one’s a short I wrote, a classic-style fairy tale I got the idea for a few weeks back called The Farmer and the Giant. It’s … allegorical. But also amusing. I hope you supporters enjoy it. It’ll be another one for More Unusual Events when I get around to compiling things.

In other news, I’m finally done being sick as of today. I did get some writing done yesterday, but I’m two days behind on Jacob Rocke’s newest outing. It’s in the finale, however, so it’ll be done very soon. At which point I can start working on Axtara 2 …

And, uh … yeah, that’s the news. There’s not much to it on a sick week, unless you want to hear about my Stellaris antics while ill. But that’s what the Discord channel is for.

Anyway, I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll catch you all later! And remember, if you aren’t a Patreon Supporter yet, you can always become one!

Enjoy!

Being a Better Writer: Should You Read the “Pillars” of Sci-Fi/Fantasy?

Max Being a Better Writer , , , ,

Good afternoon readers! Yes, I know today’s post is a little late. Just a tad. And that’s for a reason. The same reason, in fact, it might be a bit rougher than normal: I’m ill today, but didn’t feel like skipping a week of Being a Better Writer. So my mind is a little muddled.

What am I muddled with? Sore throat, stuffy nose, and headache. Oh, and fatigue. Nothing serious. Just enough to make me feel all “blegh” and desire more sleep than normal. So today is not going to be a writing day. But I really didn’t want miss a Being a Better Writer installment, so I dug through Topic List #22 looking for a topic that hopefully wouldn’t take too much brainpower to write up and found one.

Really quick, and with no real smooth transition however, I do want to note the awesome amount of Five-Star reviews that dropped for a couple of books over the weekend. It was a small explosion, actually. One of them, for Starforge, had this to say:

Florschutz at his best … If you haven’t read Starforge–or the UNSEC trilogy as a whole–you owe it to yourself to rectify that injustice.

So yeah, feeling pretty good about that!

Anyway, it was a good weekend for reviews and in general, me coming down with my cold regardless. But, since my brain isn’t quite up to the ordinary task of weaving words together, let’s dive right into today’s topic and talk about whether or not you should read the pillars of Sci-Fi and Fantasy/

Continue reading →